1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is primarily that of monitoring a continuing monetary record. More particularly, the invention is concerned with monitoring, that is, more specifically, providing for maintaining current information as to accrued charges that have been made on a credit card account and the balance of the user's credit limit that is still available for use on the credit card.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Credit cards and their uses are, of course, well known in the art. The basic credit card operation is quite simple. The credit card user can make purchases and merely present his credit card to the vendor who makes a record of the purchase which is submitted to the originator of the credit card, for example, a bank, and then the credit card holder is billed periodically, for example, every month. Typically, a credit card holder has an authorized credit limit, that is, a designated amount of credit, that he can obligate during a predetermined period, such as perhaps $3,000 a month or less.
A need has developed in connection with the use of credit cards as follows. The credit card holder has no means of knowing how much of his credit he has obligated or used at a particular time during the billing period, typically one month without consulting records that may be available. Not knowing this at any given time, of course, he does not know how much of his credit limit remains unobligated, that is, remains for him to make charges against.
The magnitude of the need can be understood from the nature of current credit card operations. Most individuals today possess one or more credit cards included among those available, such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diner's Club, Carte Blanche, Discovery, etc. Some of these cards include different categories offering different and more extensive privileges and more extensive lines of credit. One of the characteristics of a credit card operation is the fact that keeping the record of expenditures is simply left to the credit card source. Typically, the credit card user does not keep a record of expenditures himself and is thus extremely vulnerable to the temptation of impulse buying and excessive expenditures, not realizing how much he has spent until the time for payment arrives. Thus, with credit cards having high credit limits, the user often finds himself in financial difficulties without having realized that it was occurring. This is particularly significant because the interest rate on moneys owed on the credit card may run as high as 22 percent so that the problem is frequently much more significant than the credit card user ever realized. The credit card business is in fact an enormous business from the standpoint of usage and profits to the credit card sources, with often unrealized vulnerability on the part of the credit card user. The vulnerability of the credit card user increases in proportion to the privileges and benefits and credit limits offered by the credit card source.
At present, the credit card holder does not have available a simple or simplified or convenient means or method to exercise control over, or to monitor, his credit card usage.
A credit card holder could, of course, during the period of a month, for example, actually keep a written record in a book or otherwise as to the amount owing at the beginning of a month, the date and amount of each credit card charge, the amount and date of any payments he has made on the credit card account during the course of a month, and by keeping such a record he could at any time determine the total of charges he has accrued during the month and how much of his credit limit is still available to be obligated. such a process is, of course, inconvenient, cumbersome, unwieldy, and not adapted to the situation since the individual is not likely to undertake the process of keeping such a record at the time that he is making purchases or otherwise incurring obligations on his credit card.
Thus, the need for a simplified method and means or system for monitoring usage of a credit card has not been available in the art. Such a method and means or system is provided by the herein invention, a preferred embodiment of which is described in detail hereinafter.